a — Golfing Gems on the Emerald Isle —

WATERVILLE GOLF LINKS
Waterville, County Kerry, Ireland

Waterville Golf Links
Waterville, County Kerry,
Ireland
Tel: +353 (0)66 947 4102
Fax: +353 (0)66 947 4482
Email: wvgolf@iol.ie
Web site: www.watervillegolflinks.ie

        Waterville’s venerable reputation ranks it among the legendary old links courses of the British Isles. Over 100 years old, Waterville is rated among the top courses in Ireland and #48 in the most recent GolfDigest.com top courses in the world outside of the USA. And yet, the Waterville Golf Links seems to have at least as many associations with Americans as it does with the Irish. And the course has undergone more extreme makeovers than Madonna.
        Waterville did not become an 18-hole course until 1973. Its original 9 holes were not designed by Irish golfers, but by the Anglo-American contractors laying the first transatlantic cable who were looking for an activity to pursue in their free time. Waterville continued to be the American communication giant ITT’s Irish 9-hole company course until the 1960s. Then it was sold to an Irish-American, who expanded the links to 18 holes, with the help of a design team including Irish and Americans.
        In the 1980s the course was sold to a small group of Irish-Americans, who attempted to promote its image as an international links by attracting top American pros to play at Waterville. The late Payne Stewart—one of several American professionals in the membership—was made captain of the club shortly before his untimely death.
        Starting in the 1990s American course architect Tom Fazio began an extensive course makeover of Waterville that is now complete. Waterville is Fazio‘s first course project outside of the US, Mexico, and Barbados. Fazio is well known for his major overhauls of natural sites. Like bringing a forest of trees to a desert course or completely resodding an existing set of fairways or by creating a course on a vertical site that doesn’t lend itself to the horizontal game of golf.
        "Links land is a geological rarity," it says on Waterville’s web site. "Less than one percent of all the courses in Ireland and the British Isles are championship links. Waterville is one of these. Golf at Waterville is a mystical experience—the beauty of classic links land, surrounded by the sea, yet forever challenged and shaped by the elements." And also by Tom Fazio, whose project aims to modify the relatively level original inland 9-hole site by adding more dunes. The goal is to make a new eastern front nine on steroids to be consistent with the hillier topography of the western back 9 that was added in the 1970s. Not one to leave well enough alone, Fazio is also tweaking Eddie Hackett’s 30-year-old western back nine "to capture more of its natural beauty and challenge."
        The real goal, of course, is to draw more guests, especially well-heeled Americans, to a course where Nature is second-billed to Tom Fazio in order to command €150 for a round, same as they ask at Ballybunion—also a County Kerry links—where Nature remains the principal course designer. Fazio’s redo has bumped Waterville up the list to #48 in the world, only 41 places behind Ballybunion, and climbing.

LENGTH & PAR of the Championship "Dunes" Course:
    Championship Tees: Par 72, 7,309 yards, SSS 74
    Other tee boxes for golfers of other abilities.

GREENS FEES: €180/round Mo-Fr; €190/round Sa-Su.

VISITORS WELCOME: No minimum handicap
    • Course open all year.
    • May and September are especially busy months.
    • Request caddies and golf carts with your reservation.

TEE-TIME RESERVATIONS: mandatory
    • Tel: +353 (0)66 947 4102
    • Fax: +353 (0)66 947 4482
    • Email: wvgolf@iol.ie
    • LET HOME AT FIRST BOOK YOUR TEE-TIME AT WATERVILLE as part of your
       Ireland travel plans. There is no service charge for making your booking.

CONFIRMATION: A 25% non-refundable deposit is due within 10 days of receiving confirmation of your reservation. AMEX, Visa, MasterCard or personal checks are accepted for payment. Full payment is due 30 days prior to arrival date. Failure to do so automatically cancels your reservation.

CANCELLATION within 30 days of tee-time results in sacrifice of non-refundable greens fee.

FACILITIES:
    • Practice Area & Putting Green
    • Club Rental: €35 per round
    • Pull Carts: €4 per round
    • Golf Carts: €50 per round
    • Caddies available:
       Senior: €35 per round (single bag)
       Junior: €25 per round
    • Yardage Booklet: €5 per booklet
    • Pro shop
    • Bar & Restaurant

DIRECTIONS: Take the N70 west from Kenmare about 1 hour to Waterville.

NEAREST HOME AT FIRST LODGINGS: Glengarriff, County Cork, approximately 100 minutes southeast of Waterville. Take the N71 north 30 minutes to Kenmare, then the N70 (Ring of Kerry drive) west (clockwise) to Waterville.
More information about HOME AT FIRST's travel program to SOUTHWESTERN IRELAND.

NEIGHBORING COURSES:
    • Skelligs Bay, County Kerry
    • Kenmare, County Kerry
    • Killarney, County Kerry
    • Ballybunion, County Kerry
    • Tralee, County Kerry
    • Dooks, County Kerry
    • Bantry Bay, County Cork
    • Old Head of Kinsale, County Cork

HISTORY OF WATERVILLE GOLF LINKS: Ireland’s Inveragh Peninsula is almost the western limit of Europe. Waterville is almost the western limit of the Inveragh Peninsula. Golf at Waterville began in the 1880s when the men laying the first transatlantic cable between North America and Europe needed something to do during their off-hours. Organized golf on the links land at Waterville first occurred in 1889 under the banner of the Waterville Athletic Club. By 1900 Waterville joined the fledgling Golfing Union of Ireland. The original nine-hole links was set on the level eastern section of the peninsular property operated by Waterville Athletic Club for the Commercial Cable Company, a predecessor company of International Telephone & Telegraph (ITT).
        On May 21, 1927, aviator Charles A. Lindbergh buzzed the transatlantic cable station in Waterville so it could report his successful ocean crossing to a world awaiting word of the first non-stop flight from New York to Paris. For more than fifty years Waterville nine’s fortunes were tied to those of the cable company. When technology had evolved sufficiently that the cable station was deemed no longer necessary in the 1950s, the club shut its doors and the links almost went back to nature.
        Then in the early 1970s the vision of Irish-born American John A. (Jack) Mulcahy resurrected Waterford. Jack Mulcahy recruited the great Irish naturalist course architect Eddie Hackett to join him and former Masters champion Claude Harmon of Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, NY, to convert the original 9-hole company club links into an 18-hole championship course which opened in 1973. The new Waterville Golf Links was long for a links (at 7,300+ yards) and schizophrenic, with the rugged new back nine a great contrast to the flat front. But the course—with its classic seaside links design and Irish-American ownership—was a hit with Irish, British, and American golfers, and its reputation grew substantially over the next 15 years.
        In 1987 a small consortium of Irish-Americans purchased Waterville Golf Links with an expanded vision in mind. While golf in the British Isles had mostly stagnated, it was exploding in the US in the 1980s mirroring the growth of the nouveau riche upper middle class during the Reagan years. The new direction for Waterville would be in line with this American trend for golf resorts. Waterville would not only offer 4-star golf, but also 4-star fishing, and 4-star accommodation. To promote the new, improved Waterville, a litany of top golf pros—names like Payne Stewart, Mark O’Meara, Ernie Els, Jim Furyk, and, most importantly, Tiger Woods—stopped to play at Waterville en route to the British Open. Waterville’s name was suddenly mentioned in discussions of the best courses in Ireland, and the course became an important Irish stop for American golf tourists.
        Of major import in the evolution of Waterville from golf course to golf resort is the redesign of the course by American golf architect Tom Fazio and his team. In addition to the course changes (see introduction above), major shoreline protection engineering are now completed. Meanwhile the resort’s hostelry, Waterville House, is being renovated, and will feature an expanded golf practice area designed by Fazio, as well as a health & wellness center and an improved fishing program.

THE COURSE AND SOME NOTABLE HOLES:

• Waterville’s 506-yard par-5 11^th hole runs like the valley of the shadow among the dunes. For some, with good luck and good weather, this hole is properly named "Tranquility". For many under other conditions, it might better be called "Treachery".

• Waterville's 200-yard par-3 12th hole, "Mass": Links golf strategy often employs low-trajectory, bump-and-run tactics to keep the ball out of the wind and close to the narrow, undulating fairways. Sometimes, though, the fairways aren’t there, and the layout requires one skillfully placed high trajectory from tee to green. So it is at Waterville’s par-3 12^th Mass Hole, which asks for spot-on accuracy across 200 yards of carry over a frightening gorse covered dunescape from elevated tee to elevated postage stamp green.

• Waterville’s 196-yard par-3 17^th hole, called "Mulcahy’s Peak", is the links’s signature hole. It requires hitting out toward the beach from elevated tee boxes, often into a significant Atlantic breeze, and across treacherous rough covered dunes to a rambling, elevated green.

• Waterville's long (594 yards) par-5 18^th, "O’Grady’s Beach", plays even longer as you fight the cross winds coming in from the beach that parallels the hole from tee to green. Under gale conditions the best part of this closing hole is its proximity to the clubhouse.

THE REGION: Waterville’s chief advantage may also be its chief disadvantage. Its remoteness on the outer fringe of the Ring of Kerry makes Waterville one of the most difficult to reach of Ireland’s big name golf courses. The remoteness may keep crowds from threatening to overwhelm the fragile linksland, as they sometimes do on more accessible Irish links courses like Ballybunion and Lahinch.
        Meanwhile, the Ring of Kerry and the Inveragh Peninsula offer outstanding scenery combining some of Ireland’s highest mountains and most rugged coastline. Walking and touring are excellent here. There are interesting villages and towns with friendly restaurants and pubs to explore, and lakes and islands galore to discover. Like other parts of remote Ireland, the Inveragh Peninsula is dotted with the remnants of pre-history and forgotten history. Birders, photographers, cyclists, equestrians, surfers, sailors, and divers will find lots to keep them busy on the peninsula. And, if the remote location leaves one hungry for civilization or a reasonable facsimile, the supremely busy Irish tourist town of Killarney is the eastern gateway to the Ring of Kerry about 90 minutes away from Waterville.

Home At First offers independent, flexible, fly/drive travel
to four regions of Ireland. Plan your own trip, with our expert help.
For information on Home At First travel to Ireland, see:
IRELAND

Want to learn about other courses throughout the British Isles
including some of the greatest tests of golf in the world?
See our SCOTLAND, IRELAND, ENGLAND, and WALES Course Guides for more information.